This invention relates to integrated circuits, and in particular to the provision of insulating regions in said circuits.
The fabrication of an integrated circuit generally involves the provision of insulation between certain components and/or certain parts of the circuit. With the trend towards very large scale integration (VLSI) it is becoming apparent that conventional insulating techniques are not readily compatible with the very small device geometries that are being proposed for such circuits. In an attempt to overcome this problem the technique of trench isolation has been proposed. In this technique, components to be mutually isolated are separated by a trench or groove cut into the semiconductor surface. This groove is filled e.g., with silicon dioxide which provides the electrical isolation.
Conventionally, trenches are cut into the semiconductor surface by dry etching, e.g., plasma etching or reactive ion etching, and are then filled by an oxidation process. This technique has been found to suffer from two major difficulties. Firstly, the required dimensions of the trench are very small, typically less than 1 micron in width. At such small dimensions it has been found that the etching process is limited by diffusion of gas into and out of the trench thus making trench profile control difficult. Secondly it has been found that complete filling of the trench with oxide is a extremely difficult process. Void formation within the oxide filling causes subsequent breakdown of the insulation.
The object of the present invention is to minimize or to overcome these disadvantages.